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The Good Doctor Hath Returned

He’s back. Roy Halladay is back. He’s back to being the guy who we once referred to as He with a capital letter. He’s once again the Good Doctor. At least, I think He’s back. Yeah, let’s just say he’s back.

Tonight, Roy Halladay turned in his second straight dominant performance against the hard-hitting St. Louis Cardinals. He gave up 2 hits and 1 run over a dominating 8 inning performance. Cardinals hitters were walking up to the plate and right back to the dugout quickly. They looked helpless against him. Halladay had everything working, especially his curveball. His velocity was once again around 92-93 miles per hour, which is much closer to his career averages.

These past two starts have been huge steps in the right direction to Halladay’s return to form. He’s dominated two very good hitting teams in the Diamondbacks and Cardinals, and has only given up 1 run in his last 18 innings of work. His fastball seems to have regained the zip it once had and his offspeed pitches have had a lot more snap to them of late.

Fans are gaining confidence, but everybody wants to know: is Roy back for real? Was this season just a product of an injury and a bad team behind him? There were concerns about Halladay’s velocity early in Spring Training, and those concerns proved to be true early in the season. However, like I mentioned earlier, since he has returned from his injury his velocity has spiked back up to 92-93 miles per hour. These last two months will be a good indication of Halladay’s caliber at this stage in his career, but I truly do believe that this is just a bad season in the midst of a lost one for the Phillies. Halladay is crucial to the Phillies’ success, highlighted especially by their putrid 13-27 record during his absence after he was placed on the DL in late May. Halladay’s presence alone has made a difference for this team, and expect the Good Doctor to be contending for the Cy Young once again in 2013.